


Our Unwound Future

by majesticlolipop



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F Bombs, F/M, I apologize in advance, Mentions of drugs, The Lost future AU nobody asked for, also like uh i skipped all the actual plot and just did the feelsy stuff, also the jim stuff seems very dramatic but it makes sense in the game, i'm SO SORRY FOR THIS FIC, so like, sorry for the bad language lmao, yeah this is angsty I apologize
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 19:55:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majesticlolipop/pseuds/majesticlolipop
Summary: On a case, Sherlock Holmes recognizes a woman from his past: Molly Hooper.a.k.a: A very dramatic Sherlolly retelling of the events of Hershel and Claire from Professor Layton and The Unwound Future/Lost Future.I am sorry in advance. Happy Birthday Day! <3





	Our Unwound Future

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daisherz365](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisherz365/gifts).



> So myself and Day absolutely LOVE the Professor Layton series and one of our favourite things is Hershel and Claires relationship. I remember us talking about this being a Sherlolly AU fic and well... I did it. 
> 
> I think this should be done better... this idea deserves a longer fic and a better author. But I gave it my best shot!  
> Spoilers for the game Professor Layton and the Unwound Future/ Lost Future. (But I'm sure can be enjoyed without having played the games! I'm using the term 'enjoyed' loosely...)
> 
> Also I'm very sorry Day. You deserve fluff for your birthday. Why can't my mind be fluffy????
> 
> Hershel Layton: Sherlock Holmes  
> Claire Foley: Molly Hooper  
> Luke Triton: John Watson  
> Flora Reinhold: Rosie Watson  
> Clive: Jim Moriarty. (For those of you who haven't played the game, this makes Jim around 20 in this.)

''Sherlock! Wait!''  
A flick of a brown ponytail. That's all it was. The quick, fleeting glance at an eerily familiar side profile, pale skin….  
That’s all it took and Sherlock Holmes was frantically running through a busy London street, trying to get past the midday commuters. It couldn’t be… it… it couldn’t be. Could it?

‘’Christ, Sherlock! At least warn me when we are going on another speed chase…’’ a red faced John said, leaning heavily against the wall of the building they had ended up in-front of, looking at his best friend. His laughter and annoyance at his friends histrionics died down at the look on the man’s face. He was staring down an empty alley way, his eyes wide and…. vulnerable. His breath was coming in quick gasps, his eyes not able to focus on anything.  
John pushed himself off the wall and put a hand on his friend’s arm. The detective flinched at the contact and stared at John, who swallowed thickly. He’d never seen such emotion on his friend’s face before.  
‘’Who was that woman, Sherlock?’’ he asked carefully.  
He watched as his best friend took a calming breath, his usual cold mask resuming on his face, the only indication that he was still trying to understand what just happened came from his voice. ‘’N-Nothing... I …. I am imagining things. Back to the case.’’  
‘’Wha-’’  
‘’Back to the case, Watson.’’

\---------------

Sherlock met Molly Hooper while studying in an open library, trying desperately to fill his aching mind with something other than drugs. She was a student in St Barts at the time, and there was just… something between them. Immediately, they just clicked. They could just feel it. It was better than any drug he’d ever let pass through his veins, the connection he had with Molly. It was years ago now, and every time he thought of her, it was a bittersweet pain. She’d haunt his thoughts. How her big brown eyes twinkled when she teased him. How her hair fell over her face. Her proud grin she shot over to him in the crowd when she graduated. That time she had given him his familiar coat….

‘’Oh Sherlock. Come on. Every detective needs a coat.’’ she had quipped, her lips quirked in a smirk. They had been at dinner, in Angelo’s in fact. Sherlock had decided to become a consulting detective, and it had actually started going well. He had been formally asked to help Scotland Yard with a particularly tough case. This was important. Or so Molly had said, demanding they celebrate it. Thinking back on it now, Sherlock was angry at himself at being annoyed at her. She had been the driving force that had made him the man he was. She was proud of him. So very proud of him….

‘’You got me a coat?’’ he had asked, raising an eyebrow as she passed over a rather luxury looking box. He looked over at her across the table, her expression of full excitement. He would keep that exact image of her in his mind palace for years to come. 

Sherlock had lifted the box, and inside was a gorgeous navy wool coat. ‘’Molly…’ he said. ‘’This is expensive…. Did Mycroft get this?’’

‘’Oi!’’ she had exclaimed with a soft, twinkling laugh, kicking him lightly in the shin under the table. ‘’I bought it myself. The research facility is really loving my work so far and gave me a pay rise.’’ she said, the pride in herself evident in her voice. ‘’But…. Well Mycroft may have helped me pick the brand.’’ 

 

Sherlock had smirked, running his fingers over the fabric. ‘’Do you think it’ll suit me?’’

‘’Of course!’’ Molly had grinned. ‘’You’ll be the best looking detective in London. Don’t forget me when you’re famous.’’ she teased, winking at him. 

Even now, so many years later… Sherlock refused to get another coat. He refused to leave for a case without it. He was pretty sure only John had seen him without it on out of all of their acquaintances. It could do with a replacement….but Sherlock would never replace it. He’d gotten Mrs Hudson to sew some tears here and there, and he always got it expertly washed. Nothing would ever make him throw that coat out. 

\---------

‘’We need to stop the madman!’’ John yelled, bringing Sherlock back to reality. He needed to stop thinking about Molly… he needed to stop thinking about Molly…..

But how could he? The case he and John were on was too similar...too real. Too heartbreakingly real that Sherlock wanted to leap to the next drug den and try and forget all about this.  
Time travel. It was always an enigma to any scientist. Time in itself was subjective, and to be able to move through time well…. Imagine the possibilities.  
It had started with investigating missing scientists. London’s best and brightest minds were disappearing off the face of the earth. Some were physicists, others engineers. Astronomers. And, the majority were scientific researchers, and nearly all had done a paper on time travel.  
As the case continued, it got more convoluted. At one point, John had been convinced that they had actually travelled forward in time. It was a load of bollocks, Sherlock knew it was. Time Travel wasn’t possible. He knew that. 

He knew that because Molly Hooper had been a researcher. Molly Hooper, along with two fellow scientists ten years ago, had built a time machine. Molly Hooper would become to be one of the brightest minds of their generation, along with Dimitri Allen and Bill Hawks, because of the breakthrough they had gotten. But Molly Hooper was impatient. As was the others.  
And so ten years ago, Molly Hooper had put herself up as a test subject in their experiment.  
And ten years go, Molly Hooper had died in that experiment. The time machine they had built together, spent nearly three years researching and crafting, had had a fault. Dimitri had figured it out, but it was too late. It was all too late.

Sherlock could still smell the burning rubble. He could still hear the screams. He was unsure whether some of them were his own. They had found her body lifeless in the rubble, the remains of the time machine surrounding her. The explosion had taken three lives in total. Molly Hooper, and the parents of a young boy, named James Moriarty. 

 

\--------

‘’SHERLOCK!’’ John yelled, shaking his friend desperately. ‘’Snap out of it! If we don’t bloody do something, that maniac will kill us all!’’  
Sherlock blinked lamely and tried to concentrate. The maniac John was talking about was Jim Moriarty. He had built a machine, a dangerous machine that he had gotten the many scientists he had kidnapped to work on. He’d used blackmail, cunning and desperation to pull this off, and it was working. The machine was huge, more like a metal fortress, and it was about to destroy London.  
Jim Moriarty was desperate to kill. It didn’t matter who. He wouldn’t stop until London was destroyed. He just wanted the world to feel the pain he did. Of how science could rip your life apart. Jim had nothing to live for, so why should the city who had never done anything for him live too?

John’s eyes were wide and full of tears. ‘’PLEASE! He has my Rosie.. Be a bloody good friend and fucking help me!’’ he yelled desperately. ‘’I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but just forget about your thoughts for a second and help me!’’

‘‘Well you yelling isn’t going to help the situation!’’

‘’He has my daughter!’’

‘’He’s about to kill much more than Rosie, John.’’

‘’WILL YOU TWO STOP FIGHTING?!!!!’’

That voice. 

That voice….?

Both men turned towards the voice, looking upon a woman in her thirties, her hair a chocolate brown, tied up in a ponytail. She had on cream slacks and white trainers, a multicoloured sweater over a shirt. Her eyes were gleaming, determined as she grabbed hold of both of them. 

John thought she was crazy. Sherlock thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.  
‘’M...M..Mol….No. What?’’ Sherlock stuttered desperately, getting thrown into a car forcebly by the woman who looked exactly like Molly. His Molly. Was it his Molly?  
The woman finally let her eyes meet the detectives. ‘’Hello, Sherlock…’’ she said, her brown eyes full of emotion, her voice barely a whisper. She swallowed as she looked at his face, and then quirked a smile. This wasn’t happening.  
‘’How-’’  
‘’I’m Claire, Molly’s sister…’’  
Sherlock stared at her in confusion, awe, happiness, and pain all at once. ‘’What? She never…’’  
‘’Never mentioned me? Yeah, I wouldn’t expect her to. We...fell out, and we never resolved it before…..’’ she cleared her throat. ‘’I didn’t think this was how I would end up meeting you Sherlock. She talked so much of you. She loved you so much…. I have thought of reaching out before but…. Look. We can have a catch up at some other point.’’ she looked between the two men. ‘’Right now, we have a murderer to stop.’’

 

‘’Who the fuck is Molly?!’’ John demanded to Sherlock from the back seat of the car, the mysterious woman driving it full speed towards the fortress. Claire was her name, apparently. The way Sherlock looked at her…. He would have to ask about this ‘Molly’ person afterwards. But ‘Claire’ was right.  
There was a murderer to stop. 

\----------

Grief makes people do things. In Sherlock’s case, it made him strive to be a better man. Losing Molly Hooper was single handedly the worst thing to ever happen to him in the 38 years of his life. If he hadn’t known how it felt to have lost, he would have thought nothing of dying. But the pain felt, the bone deep, agonising pain that never ended…. He couldn’t do it to the few people he had grown to love. He couldn’t do it to Greg. He couldn’t do it to Mycroft. He couldn’t do it to his parents, to Mrs Hudson….. And in his darkest days, when he had met Dr Watson, he had learned that he couldn’t do it to him either. So Sherlock strived to live. To live on, for Molly. Researching her case made him a better detective. The government wanted to keep it quiet, no-one had to know that the government had funded a failed experiment that ended in death and destruction. It had torn a rift between him and Mycroft, something Mycroft was still desperately trying to salvage.  
Sherlock didn’t resent Mycroft anymore. It only egged him on more to learn, to sharpen his senses, so that one day he would find the truth. Avenge the love of his life. Sherlock didn’t think he was a good man, but he tried to be. He tried every day. Because he had to. Molly would’ve wanted him to. 

Grief makes people do things. Jim Moriarty can still smell the burning, hear the screaming that was most definitely his. He remembers watching desperately as the flat he grew up in was engulfed in flames. He remembers being held back by a man in a navy coat, whose expression was dark.  
‘’PLEASE!’’ he had screamed, angry and confused tears falling down his face. ‘’My parents are in there! Let me goooooooooo!’’ he had sobbed, but the man had just held him as he thrashed, until he cried himself to a point of exhaustion. It wasn’t until years later that Jim would see that the man didn’t want another body to be laid to rest.  
Jim Moriarty didn’t hate Sherlock Holmes. He hated science. He hated Molly Hooper and Dimitri Allen. Later he would hate Bill Hawks, who he had figured out had been involved too but the government had decided to cover up. Most of all, he hated time travel.  
So Jim Moriarty studied. His foster parents tried to bond with him, but he would never open up. He locked himself away. He studied and studied and studied. He formulated a plan so cunning, so dark…. A revenge to all the bastards who had stolen his parents. London would burn. If he burned with it, he didn’t care. He needed people to burn. He craved it. He would burn the heart of everyone in London, until everyone’s heart was as black as his.  
\------------

‘’Claire!’’ Sherlock yelled, watching as the woman jumped from the car they were in. They had just saved Rosie from Moriarty’s grasp, the little girl clutching her father’s coat for dear life, John holding her desperately close. They had figured out a way, with all three of their cunning minds, to turn off the machine. But the machine was self destructing, and Jim Moriarty was still inside of the metal fortress of destruction. ‘’It’s not worth it!’’ Sherlock yelled, reaching out to grab her hand, but she jumped anyway.  
‘’I need to do this Sherlock! Bring John and Rosie to safety!’’ she said, their eyes meeting again. Sherlock’s eyes widened as he looked into hers, and for a moment time stood still. She nodded at him solemnly, and he just nodded back, letting her go. She was right. Sherlock needed to keep John and Rosie safe. They had all lost too much, he had lost too much to risk the lives of the Watsons, people he considered family.

Sherlock wasn’t sure what had compelled Claire to go back into the fortress, but she had come out about twenty minutes later with a hurt and limping Jim Moriarty, his arm around her shoulders. The young man looked up at Sherlock, the two staring at eachother for a moment. Greg Lestrade stood behind Sherlock, patiently waiting along with other police officers and government officials. Mycroft was there too, in the shadows like always. John noticed the older Holmes’ eyes widen as he took in Claire.  
‘’Mr Holmes.’’ Moriarty looked up at Sherlock, blood spilling slowly from a wound on his forehead.  
‘’James.’’  
‘’I…. I never thanked you. For that day, I mean….’’  
‘’James. You’ve been given another chance at life. Not everyone is as lucky as to have that opportunity. You and I both know when someone we love wasn’t meant to die so soon.’’ his eyes flashed to Claire’s for a moment, before falling back on the young man. ‘’Use your time… use this opportunity to learn. And who knows… when you get out of prison, I think perhaps you could be a good man.’’

Jim Moriarty was taken into custody then. Greg drove him away with some of the force, the rest of the force and government agents getting to work to help the residents in the surrounding areas that had been caught in the ruckus of Jim’s failed revenge plot. Some houses were burning, sidewalks destroyed. But the casualties were much fewer than they would have been had Sherlock, John and Claire not been there.

John held his daughter close to him and looked over at Sherlock, watching as Claire slowly walked over to him, the air thick and not just with smoke.  
‘’John.’’ Mycroft said softly, putting a hand on the doctor’s shoulder. ‘’Let’s leave them to it. Besides, I’m sure my brother’s goddaughter deserves some ice-cream after that experience, don’t you?’’

\-------

Sherlock followed Claire down a quiet street to get away from the noise and the excitement from the escapade. His mind was strangely calm. Even though he couldn’t make sense of everything, his only thought was the woman in-front of him. The woman who turned around to look up at him, clearly trying to think of something to say. So he spoke first. 

‘’Molly didn’t have a sister. I checked. I studied her files extensively trying to find out what happened to her. So who are you?’’

The woman blinked away some tears, looking up at him with warm, twinkling eyes. She gave a little smile. ‘’My my, Sherlock...you really did become such a wonderful man..’’

Sherlock could feel his heart leap into his chest; tears filling his eyes that he tried to ignore. ‘’Molly….. How…’’  
Molly swallowed thickly and just stared up at him. ‘’It wasn’t a complete failure… The research, the experiment I mean.’’ she said softly, laughing bitterly. ‘’I didn’t die. Not exactly..’’ she said, taking a step closer to him. ‘’Not yet.’’

 

Sherlock took a step closer, moving to take her hands in his. ‘’What does this mean? Tell me what this means Molly!’’ He asked desperately, his eyes searching hers. 

‘’I don’t have long left here, Sherlock…’’ she said, her eyes staring up into his, her hands touching his coat, running over his chest. She smiled to herself, despite of herself. He had kept the coat. 

Molly sniffled, the tears falling freely down her cheeks. ‘’The experiment worked, but not well. I found myself stuck here, ten years in the future. It didn’t work properly though…… now that the past has met the present…... I...I-I will cease to exist.’’ she said, and watched as Sherlock shook his head desperately, taking her face in his hands.  
‘’No! I refuse to believe it!’’ he yelled, tears streaming down his face. ‘’I lost you once, I can’t lose you again! I can’t! I can’t do it Molly! There has to be something I can do!’’  
‘’There’s nothing, my darling…’’ she told him firmly, her delicate hand brushing away his tears. ‘’It was my choice to put myself up as the test subject. I was naive, I was stubborn. I… I am so sorry Sherlock…’’ she said, Sherlock staring at her. He couldn’t take it anymore, he leaned in and captured her lips with his own. Ten long years… ten long years he’d waited for this. Molly’s arms went around his neck and they kissed desperately, the two of them still crying profusely. They broke apart when they could sense a light coming between them. 

‘’I need to go now…’’ Molly said, her skin seemingly glowing. She looked up at Sherlock and smiled. Smiled that smile that Sherlock had memorised and looked over so many times in his life. ‘’Goodbye, Sherlock… thank you for a wonderful life I had with you. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m… I’m sorry for denying us the years we could have spent together. Do you remember how we talked about it?’’ She was properly crying now, and the sky began to pour down with rain. Sherlock couldn’t tell what he was watching, Molly looking like an angel from heaven, and yet this situation wasn’t heavenly at all.  
Molly turned to leave and turn the other corner of the street. She looked at him again, smiling through her tears. ‘’I’ll miss you, Sherlock. I will miss you, and our lost future…’’

And with those final words, she turned and walked around the corner. Sherlock took a moment to remember how to use his body, and ran… ran so fast his legs felt on fire, but it was too late. 

Molly was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Well that was a rollarcoaster. I'm going to go cry in my cereal.  
> (also i hope you like the little nod to Claire by Molly using her name as a cover instead of Celeste. I couldn't help it.)  
> I'm sorry again Day. I hope I didn't ruin your birthday ahahah. Love you! <3
> 
> peace and love  
> katch xo


End file.
